Habeck, Baerbock and Co. have recently reacted harshly when they are insulted online. That is their right. However, the wave of lawsuits that they are currently unleashing is surprising. Have the Greens become too thin-skinned?

Under the guise of freedom of speech, anonymous commentators on social media channels insult everyone who thinks differently than they do. The favorite victims at the moment are Green politicians. But they are fighting back.

A man from Bavaria who called Economics Minister Robert Habeck a “fullhead” has to pay a fine of 2,100 euros. Annalena Baerbock is taking legal action against an X-user who called her the “stupidest foreign minister in the world”. 

Of course, nobody has to put up with everything. But are the Greens overdoing it now? Have they suddenly become hypersensitive? And are they actually doing themselves a favor by doing this?

The party has a prominent campaigner against online hate speech in its own ranks: Renate Künast. In 1986, the former Agriculture Minister dared to interject in the Berlin House of Representatives, which made legal history.

A party colleague was asked how she felt about the NRW Greens’ demand to make sexual acts against children unpunished. The minutes recorded an interjection from Künast: “Coma, if there is no violence involved.” Which was obviously intended as a clarification of the Green Party’s rumored demand from North Rhine-Westphalia.

30 years later – the debate about the Green Party’s former attitude towards pedophilia had boiled up again – an online activist put the sentence in her mouth: “Coma, if there is no violence involved, sex with children is just fine. It’s good now.”

Künast went to court, and in the course of the trial she was bombarded with numerous hate posts. She demanded information from Facebook about the users’ inventory data – but in an initial ruling in 2019, the Berlin Regional Court deemed a long list of such comments permissible, including “dirty pig”, “dirty cunt” and “piece of shit”.

In response to Künast’s complaint, the regional court partially corrected itself, and the higher court in the next instance considered further posts to be offensive.

In 2022, the Federal Constitutional Court, which Künast finally appealed to, objected to the Chamber Court’s assessment of the ten posts that were considered permissible. These include the phrases “Pedophile Trulla”, “The old one has a damaged roof, it’s hollow as a chive” and “She also wanted to be the brightest candle, pedo dirt”.

Freedom of expression is still important in protecting “criticism of power”. However, it does not allow “every insult against public officials, even if it is personal”, the judges ruled, and called for each individual case to be examined.

In doing so, they strengthened the politician’s personal rights. Their reasoning: “A willingness to participate in the state and society can only be expected if those who get involved and make a public contribution are guaranteed adequate protection of their personal rights.”

As I said, the whole thing is history. The affair comes from a time when the Greens were considered rebellious. Künast is more of the rough generation of Joschka Fischer than the smart generation of Habeck and Baerbock.

In the 30 years that have passed, the perception of the Greens has changed. Not least because of their uncompromising commitment to climate protection, they appear to be a party in which the former opposition rebels have made way for a clique that governs with regulations and bans.

But when politicians with such a reputation also call for the public prosecutor when they are called “fullheads”, I suspect that there are deeply insecure politicians at work here who only know how to help themselves by resorting to state power. 

In my opinion, it would be better if they considered on a case-by-case basis whether they would shoot sparrows with cannons and thereby expose themselves to the ridicule of many people. In any case, this would save you some embarrassment.

The article “The Greens are complaining like crazy – for me this only allows one conclusion” comes from Business Punk.